Copyright
© 2018
John F. Oyler
January 4, 2018
An Octogenarian Christmas
It is a family tradition that its eldest member
be permitted to sleep until 7:00 am on Christmas morning. I was abruptly
aroused from a deep slumber precisely at that time when my five grandchildren
burst into the bedroom shooting “Merry Christmas” and encouraging me to pull
myself together and stumble downstairs.
A dozen of us shared the holiday in Olde
Sewickley Highlands where Beth, Mike, and Rachael have comfortably settled into
their new home, off Camp Meeting Road. They still have a home in Champaign,
Illinois, which they are maintaining while Mike finishes out his academic
commitment at the University of Illinois.
My arrival in the living room was accompanied by
a big cheer by all the folks eagerly awaiting the distribution of the
impressive collection of stockings hanging over the fireplace. It almost seemed
a shame to take them down and disrupt the classic picture they completed, with
the display of Christmas cards on the mantel above and the collection of
antique windup toys that decorated the hearth below.
John, Victoria, and Lai An had flown in from
China and were having difficulty adjusting to the time change. Fortunately, Lai
An was able to sleep until 3:00 am and was in good shape to enjoy the
excitement of the morning. It was a real treat to experience the wonder of the
day through the eyes of a four-year-old.
Ian and Nora found tee shirts showing Steeler JuJu
Smith-Schuster towering over Cincinnati Bengal villain Vontaze Burfect and
promptly put them on. Although they live in Colorado, they both are ardent
Steeler fans. They had flown in with their parents, Jim and Sara, and their
sister Claire two days earlier.
Once the stockings were dumped Beth delivered
coffee, nut roll, and tangerines, to provide us with the stamina needed for the
festivities ahead of us. The Christmas tree was in the middle of a train board
sporting a lovely Christmas village and an impressive Lionel Atchison Topeka
and Santa Fe train.
The tree was decorated with memories, especially
hand-made ornaments my wife had crafted when our children were young – small
pieces of wood painted as Santas, wine bottle corks transformed into clowns, and
a clothes pin magically turned into a drummer boy. The skirt around the base is
another of her products, green felt decorated with cutout Christmas symbols. This
is our second Christmas without her, but she is still very much with us.
A special ornament is a heavy blue sphere, which
has been in the Oyler family for nearly a century. I was given the privilege of
hanging it, making certain to find a particularly strong branch that could
support it. Another neat one is a homemade Gingerbread Man given to our
children in 1974 by their neighbors, Rob and Melissa Henninger.
Surrounding the train board was an
embarrassingly large pile of gaily decorated gifts. Despite our resolve to cut
back on the number of gifts we exchange, the pile gets bigger every year. It is
especially gratifying to see how much thoughtfulness our grandchildren put into
selecting gifts for each of us and how much pleasure they get out of our joy
receiving them.
This year John’s family brought a number of
lovely things from China, including the Chinese version of an Advent calendar
for the arrival of Spring. It consists of an unpainted flowering shrub with
eighty-one petals to be painted, one for each day between the Winter Solstice
and the Vernal Equinox. Apparently, the artist is permitted to choose a
different color each day, with the result being a rainbow of color. I am eager
to get started on mine and determined that mine will be the most attractive one
produced in our family.
Some of us impulsively put on items of clothing
we received as gifts. I currently am wearing my new moccasins and a lovely red
cashmere sweater from Mongolia. Jim has on a tee shirt sporting a logo that is
a combination of the old Iron City Beer trademark and a Pittsburgh “City of
Bridges” emblem. Lai An and Claire both are wearing beautiful new dresses.
It was dark when I got up but in a short time it
got light and we realized that Mother Nature had cooperated by depositing a
very thin layer of snow overnight. It is now early afternoon and Sara has taken
the grandchildren sledding. Much too cold for Grandpa to join them; he was
happy to stay inside and start this column.
We have recently followed an exchange in the
“Letters to the Editor” section of the daily paper dealing with political
correctness and the Christmas holiday. One side wants to “put Christ back into
Christmas”; the other, to eliminate the holiday completely so we don’t offend
the non-Christians. After observing the joy the holiday provides our
multi-cultural family with its wide collection of religious heritages, my
obsession with moderation and my opposition to extremism have become stronger
than ever. My New Year’s resolution will be to emphasize tolerance and a desire
to understand folks who are different from me. After all, isn’t that everybody?
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